Orientalism is a style of writing that is majorly dominated by the perspectives and ideas of the Orient. Latent Orientalism is the unconscious certainty about Orient knowledge; it is passive and silent. Manifest Orientalism is spoken, is action, is movement; it tells what Latent Orientalism does not.[1]
Orientalism and Its History
Orientalism has been a long standing tradition within European Western culture. Western Europeans idolize the Orient because it contains some of the oldest and greatest civilizations. The Orient has been something the Europeans could compare themselves too, and to emulate. According to Edward Said, anything someone teaches or studies that has to do with the Orient is Orientalism. Orientalism is using the Orient style and way of life to depict something about the country or people the author is writing about. There are three different types of Orientalism. There is the textual construct of the Orient, distinguishing occidental and Oriental cultures, and power relations. Textual construct of the Orient is the use of novels, books, poems and letters to represent the Orient. These allow the political, cultural, and social views of the current time to be shared in a more susceptible way. Distinguishing occidental and Oriental cultures is closely related to the first type of Orientalism. However, this uses the ideas and culture of the Orient to define the ideas of western culture. The last type, power relations, is to show the power relationship between two cultures-- i.e. Orient culture and Western culture. However, this power is not just political, but also moral, cultural, and intellectual. [2]
Ezra Pound
Known Artists and Writers
Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound was born in Idaho in 1885. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and Hamilton College, Pound taught classes and traveled the world. After meeting Ernest Fenellosa, he became interested in Japanese and Chinese poetry. He married Dorothy Shakespeare and became editor of the Little Review. He was arrested for broadcasting fascist ideas over the radio. Pound won awards for many of his works, such as the Pisan Cantos. He died in Venice in 1972. Pound was known for his contributions in promoting modernist aesthetic in poetry and opening and exchange of work between many other poets. He exchanged work with writers such as Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, W.B.
Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and Marianne Moore. He had much to do with Imagism and the movement towards Orientalism. [3]
One of Ezra Pound's most famous Orientalist works: Cathay
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devonshire in 1772 and is credited with starting the English Romantic movement with his book Lyrical (1789) with William Wordsworth. His poems set a precedent with their use of everyday language and innovative ways of viewing nature. In 1816, his unfinished poems Christabel and Kubla Khan were published and the next year Sibylline Leaves followed. These poems were inspired by dreams and after his production of Biographia Literaria in 1817, Coleridge became devoted in theological and politico-sociological works and was even elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1824. He died in 1834.[4]
Orientalism in Poetry
"How did...lyric poetry come to the service of Orientalism's broadly imperialistic view of the world"[5]
-Edward Said
This rather hostile question encompasses the lasting impression that Orientalism made in the world of poetry. It came to be seen as a form of subverted racism and oppression through colonialism, obscuring the beauty that the concept of the theme of the Orient made on the mind of the poet at the time, and the images and feelings generated upon the reader. Poets using Orientalism in subject matter and technique include Ezra Pound and his "Cathay", and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan", written in 1797.
"The Arabian Nights", translated by a number of authors, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Alfred Tennyson, and Francois Petis de la Croix, who wrote a popular companion piece called a "Thousand and One Nights"[6] , is perhaps one of the best examples of Orientalism in literature. Defining Orientalism as a technique or style of writing is difficult for the layperson to understand, when poems and stories such as those listed hold such enchantment. Edward Said cryptically defines it: "Orientalism is a style of thought based upon ontological and epistemological distinction made between "the Orient" and (most of the time) "the Occident." Thus a very large mass of writers, among whom are poets, novelists, philosophers, political theorists, economists, and imperial administrators, have accepted the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, "mind," destiny, and so on. . . [7] Therefore, Orientalism is not so much a style of writing, as in meter, form or language use, but a concept, that of glorifying and even deifying the Orient, defined as the Near Eastern Orient: Turkey, the countries of Greece, the Middle East, and Northern Africa[8] and the Far East: the countries of India, China and Japan.
The jewelled steps are already quite
with dew,
It is so late the dew soaks my gauze
stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.
By Rihaku
The Jewel Stairs' Grievance eludes to many things. In the first line, "the jewel stairs" elude to a palace. In the title, the word "grievance" seems to imply that something has gone awry, there seems to be something the protagonist is struggling with. Her gauze stockings show that she has money, is privileged, and therefore is a court lady. In line six, "the clear autumn" is insinuating that because it is a clear night, the man she is waiting for has no good reason to be late. "The dew that has soaked her stockings" shows the reader that she has waited for an extremely long time. This poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with
August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the
river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
By Rihaku Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge [9] [Excerpt] In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Orientalism in Art
Orientalism as a movement in art began in the early nineteenth century, and is attributed to the French colonial conquests of Egypt, led by Napoleon Bonaparte. Artists visited the regions that were termed the Near Eastern Orient. The paintings were based on the intriguing and lavish diversity of those countries as they contrasted to the perceived monotony of subject matter in Europe. Subject matter ranged from royalty and harems to street scenes, with Christianity serving as inspiration for some artists as well. "Some of the first nineteenth-century Orientalist paintings were intended as propaganda in support of French imperialism, depicting the East as a place of backwardness, lawlessness, or barbarism enlightened and tamed by French rule"[10] The movement continued for more than a century, with artists such as Jean-Leon Gerome, pictured above, popularizing the theme, as well as Eugene Delacroix, Theodore Chasseriau, Auguste Renoir, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, Vasily Kandinsky.
What follows are two definitions of Orientalism that are vastly different. The first is that Orientalism is a way for a group, usually Westerners, to mirror their own feelings onto another culture, usually Asian, without actually trying to see the other culture as a group of people with their own feelings and thoughts. The second is that it's an imitation of artistic styles across continents that followed suit with the increase of trade between two different cultures. Due to the complications of whether racism is inherent in those who utilize Orientalism there is frequent debate on whether the user would fall under the first or the second category.
Images are used in accordance with fair use practices. If you hold copyright to an image, and do not agree that its use accords with fair use practices, please contact the wiki's creator and organizer.
Orientalism and Its History
Orientalism has been a long standing tradition within European Western culture. Western Europeans idolize the Orient because it contains some of the oldest and greatest civilizations. The Orient has been something the Europeans could compare themselves too, and to emulate. According to Edward Said, anything someone teaches or studies that has to do with the Orient is Orientalism. Orientalism is using the Orient style and way of life to depict something about the country or people the author is writing about. There are three different types of Orientalism. There is the textual construct of the Orient, distinguishing occidental and Oriental cultures, and power relations. Textual construct of the Orient is the use of novels, books, poems and letters to represent the Orient. These allow the political, cultural, and social views of the current time to be shared in a more susceptible way. Distinguishing occidental and Oriental cultures is closely related to the first type of Orientalism. However, this uses the ideas and culture of the Orient to define the ideas of western culture. The last type, power relations, is to show the power relationship between two cultures-- i.e. Orient culture and Western culture. However, this power is not just political, but also moral, cultural, and intellectual. [2]Known Artists and Writers
Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound was born in Idaho in 1885. He attended the University of Pennsylvania and Hamilton College, Pound taught classes and traveled the world. After meeting Ernest Fenellosa, he became interested in Japanese and Chinese poetry. He married Dorothy Shakespeare and became editor of the Little Review. He was arrested for broadcasting fascist ideas over the radio. Pound won awards for many of his works, such as the Pisan Cantos. He died in Venice in 1972. Pound was known for his contributions in promoting modernist aesthetic in poetry and opening and exchange of work between many other poets. He exchanged work with writers such as Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, W.B.
Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and Marianne Moore. He had much to do with Imagism and the movement towards Orientalism.
[3]
One of Ezra Pound's most famous Orientalist works:
Cathay
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Orientalism in Poetry
"How did...lyric poetry come to the service of Orientalism's broadly imperialistic view of the world"[5]-Edward Said
This rather hostile question encompasses the lasting impression that Orientalism made in the world of poetry. It came to be seen as a form of subverted racism and oppression through colonialism, obscuring the beauty that the concept of the theme of the Orient made on the mind of the poet at the time, and the images and feelings generated upon the reader. Poets using Orientalism in subject matter and technique include Ezra Pound and his "Cathay", and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Kubla Khan", written in 1797.
"The Arabian Nights", translated by a number of authors, including Robert Louis Stevenson, Alfred Tennyson, and Francois Petis de la Croix, who wrote a popular companion piece called a "Thousand and One Nights"[6] , is perhaps one of the best examples of Orientalism in literature. Defining Orientalism as a technique or style of writing is difficult for the layperson to understand, when poems and stories such as those listed hold such enchantment. Edward Said cryptically defines it: "Orientalism is a style of thought based upon ontological and epistemological distinction made between "the Orient" and (most of the time) "the Occident." Thus a very large mass of writers, among whom are poets, novelists, philosophers, political theorists, economists, and imperial administrators, have accepted the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, "mind," destiny, and so on. . . [7] Therefore, Orientalism is not so much a style of writing, as in meter, form or language use, but a concept, that of glorifying and even deifying the Orient, defined as the Near Eastern Orient: Turkey, the countries of Greece, the Middle East, and Northern Africa[8] and the Far East: the countries of India, China and Japan.
Samples of Orientalism in Literature
The Jewel Stairs' Grievance by Ezra Pound
The jewelled steps are already quite
with dew,
It is so late the dew soaks my gauze
stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.
By Rihaku
The Jewel Stairs' Grievance eludes to many things. In the first line, "the jewel stairs" elude to a palace. In the title, the word "grievance" seems to imply that something has gone awry, there seems to be something the protagonist is struggling with. Her gauze stockings show that she has money, is privileged, and therefore is a court lady. In line six, "the clear autumn" is insinuating that because it is a clear night, the man she is waiting for has no good reason to be late. "The dew that has soaked her stockings" shows the reader that she has waited for an extremely long time. This poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.
The River Merchant's Wife by Ezra Pound
[Excerpt]
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.The paired butterflies are already yellow with
August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the
river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
By Rihaku
Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge [9]
[Excerpt]
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
Orientalism in Art
Orientalism as a movement in art began in the early nineteenth century, and is attributed to the French colonial conquests of Egypt, led by Napoleon Bonaparte. Artists visited the regions that were termed the Near Eastern Orient. The paintings were based on the intriguing and lavish diversity of those countries as they contrasted to the perceived monotony of subject matter in Europe. Subject matter ranged from royalty and harems to street scenes, with Christianity serving as inspiration for some artists as well. "Some of the first nineteenth-century Orientalist paintings were intended as propaganda in support of French imperialism, depicting the East as a place of backwardness, lawlessness, or barbarism enlightened and tamed by French rule"[10] The movement continued for more than a century, with artists such as Jean-Leon Gerome, pictured above, popularizing the theme, as well as Eugene Delacroix, Theodore Chasseriau, Auguste Renoir, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, Vasily Kandinsky.What follows are two definitions of Orientalism that are vastly different. The first is that Orientalism is a way for a group, usually Westerners, to mirror their own feelings onto another culture, usually Asian, without actually trying to see the other culture as a group of people with their own feelings and thoughts. The second is that it's an imitation of artistic styles across continents that followed suit with the increase of trade between two different cultures. Due to the complications of whether racism is inherent in those who utilize Orientalism there is frequent debate on whether the user would fall under the first or the second category.
External Links
Book on Byron's OrientalismOrientalist Poetics
Orientalism and Literature
Orientalism in Art
Orientalism Art
Mary Shelley's Critique on Orientalism in Frankenstien
Hugo's Orientalism Published in an Egyptian Newspaper
Art Gallery
References
Images are used in accordance with fair use practices.If you hold copyright to an image, and do not agree that its use accords with fair use practices,
please contact the wiki's creator and organizer.
Meagher, Jennifer.//Orientalism in Nineteenth-Century Art//. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2011. Web. 2.22.2012